Poster #73 - Should Anthony Wear a Skirt? Cross-Cultural Comparisons on Children's Reactions to Norm Decisions and Violations

• In Event: Poster Session 03

Abstract

In recent years, more and more people with different cultural backgrounds are living closely together. For this reason, knowledge about cultural variations in social behaviour is becoming increasingly relevant. One important aspect of social behaviour that varies considerably between cultural groups are social norms. Social norms are informal guidelines created by groups with shared values, beliefs and goals that provide guidelines for appropriate behaviour in different social contexts (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004; Hechter & Opp, 2001; Ullmann-Margalit, 2015). Cultural differences can lead to conflicts when people perceive social norms as not being respected. While social norms have frequently been studied with monocultural children (see Hardecker & Tomasello, 2017; Rakoczy, Warneken, & Tomasello, 2008; Vaish et al., 2011), not much is known about how children from various cultural backgrounds, differ in their understanding and reasoning about social norms of their own and other cultures.
In this study, we are currently investigating the reactions of 4- to 12-year-old mono- and bicultural children living in one of three cultures (Switzerland, Hong Kong, or the United Kingdom) to a selection of social norms. These social norms were previously collected in a questionnaire with parents living in the three respective cultures and subsequently evaluated in terms of their relevance to their respective societies. In the first task, we investigate whether the social norms of their own culture influence participants' decisions about the presumed behaviour of others and at what age participants are already aware of these social norms. We show a picture book story with two options involving social norms (usually norm-compliant and norm-violating behaviour) and ask the participants to decide how protagonists with different cultural backgrounds would act in these scenarios. In addition, we investigate to which extent children differentiate between the two protagonists based on their cultural backgrounds (hypotheses will be analysed with generalised linear mixed-effects models, e.g., decision ~ biculturalism_participant + age_participant * culture_participant * culture_protagonist). We expect monocultural and bicultural children to choose the norm-conforming behaviour for the norms of their culture more often than other behaviour (see Rakoczy & Schmidt, 2013) and older children to know their culture-specific norms better than younger. In the second task, participants are confronted with the protagonist’s actual decision to behave in either a norm-conforming or norm-violating way. We then ask them to rate the protagonist's behaviour as "okay" or "not okay". We aim to determine whether bicultural children differ from monocultural children in their openness to norm violations (acceptance ~ biculturalism_participant + age_participant * culture_participant * culture_protagonist). We expect monocultural children to evaluate a decision more likely as "not okay" when confronted with norm-violating behaviour of a norm of their own culture than when confronted with other behaviour. Because bicultural children grow up with norms from two different cultures, we expect them to experience more norm violations and, therefore, be more likely to accept these than monocultural children. Overall, this study will provide insights into the cross-cultural variations in norm perception and behaviour of bicultural children.

Authors

• Natascha Helbling, University of Zurich
  Presenting Author

• Vanessa Tandhika

• Anja Gampe, University of Duisburg-Essen

• Moritz M Daum, University of Zürich